Social Transformations of the Victorian Age: A Survey of Court and CountryEscott, T. H. S. (Thomas Hay Sweet)
History
Social Transformations of the Victorian Age: A Survey of Court and Country
Escott, T. H. S. (Thomas Hay Sweet)
Great Britain -- Civilization -- 19th century; Great Britain -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
returns of the last three censuses 1871, 1881, 1891, a period of twenty
years. Of persons being foreigners both by birth and nationality residing
at these epochs in England and Wales, there were in 1871, 100,638; in
1881 there were 117,999; in 1891 there were 198,113. The process indicated
by these figures seems to have been at varying rates going forward through
a long series of years.
For the two decades between 1871 and 1891, the growth of foreigners among
us was 98 per cent. It will, therefore, probably not be a serious
miscalculation to estimate the total of strangers within our gates as
having doubled itself during the more recent years of the Queen's reign.
This estimate derives fresh probability from the fact that between 1881
and 1891 the increase of foreigners domiciled in England outstripped by
nearly six-fold the augmentation during the previous decade. The greater
part of foreigners in England and Wales are with us for business purposes,
or are sailors on board ships trading with England. As, therefore, might
be expected, most of them are to be found in the great industrial centres,
or at the large seaports. Thus, of a total of 198,113, 95,053, or nearly
one-half were enumerated in London; 15,536 in the suburban counties of
Surrey, Kent, Middlesex, Essex. Lancashire contained 25,109 with an
overflow of 2,254 into the suburban parts of Cheshire. In Yorkshire there
were 15,755; in the mining counties of Durham, Glamorganshire,
Northumberland, though not engaged in mining but in shipping coals, there
were 14,908. The foreign miners, it may be said, actually at work in
England are very few. The town in which the total proportion of foreigners
to the population has always been highest is of course London (the
strictly metropolitan area); the London foreign population is 23 to
1,000. In the suburban districts of West Ham, Willesden and Tottenham the
proportion is 10 to 1,000. In the provinces, next to London come Cardiff
with 21 per 4,000, South Shields and Manchester each with 18 per 1,000,
Leeds and Grimsby each with 16, Liverpool and Hull each with 14; Newport
and Swansea each with 12; the other towns where a proportion of 10 per
1,000 is reached are Sunderland, Hastings and Brighton. Of the 198,000 odd
foreigners now under consideration, 1,804 are Asiatics coming from China,
Persia, Arabia or elsewhere; 1,062 are from Egypt or some other part of
Africa; 26,226 are Americans; out of these 19,740 belong to the United
States, the subjects of the Stripes and Stars enumerated as domiciled
among us in 1881 were 17,767, an increase of 11·1 per cent, during the
decade. The number of English living abroad is of course immeasurably
greater than that of foreigners living in England. Thus in the case of the
United States alone, in 1891 there were settled 1,008,220 English people;
this was an increase of 35·2 per cent. over those enumerated in 1881.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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